CHAPTER 4.

LOST OF MY RAGE had been spent on the furious footrace to St. Anthony's with Marcus Danielscradled in my arms. The adrenaline rush was gone now, but I felt an unnatural weariness.

The emergency-room waiting area was noise and frustrated confusion.

Babies crying, parents wailing out their grief, the PA incessantly paging doctors. A bleedingman kept muttering, “Ho shit, ho shit.”I could still see the beautiful, sad eyes of Marcus Daniels. I could still hear his softvoice.

At a little past six-thirty that night, my partner in crime arrived unexpectedly at thehospital. Something about that struck me as wrong, but I let it pass for now.

John Sampson and I have been best friends since we were both ten years old and running thesesame streets in D.C. Southeast. Somehow, we survived without having our throats slashed. Idrifted into abnormal psychology, and eventually got a doctorate at Johns Hopkins. Sampsonwent into the army. In some strange and mysterious manner, we both ended up working togetheron the D.C. police force.

I was sitting on a sheetless gurney parked outside the Trauma Room.

Next to me was the “crash cart” they had used for Marcus. Rubber tourniquets hung likestreamers from the black handles of the cart.

“How's the boy?” Sampson asked. He knew about Marcus already.

Somehow, he always knew. The rain was running down his black poncho in little streams, but hedidn't seem to care.